The Sure Things are loading out and mounting up on the road to the legendary Twin Cities Saloon at Longview, AB, this weekend and can’t wait to hit the stage at one of Canadian country musics’ historic venues! This will be the first trip down to cowboy country for this band and my first return to my personal all-time favorite venue since 2004; a stretch during which both of us have seen many changes, and I’m looking forward to renewing acquaintances and making new friends.
A survivor after decades of change in the world of the honky-tonks, the Twin Cities remains a vibrant link to another time, a right-of-passage, stubborn outpost of the blues, and a lifestyle that I feel a kinship to for better or worse.
It was a bittersweet Saturday night with our friends and neighbours at the Thorsby Hotel Tavern last week as we spent the evening saying ‘so long’ and passing along best wishes to managers Glen & Jeanette, who’ve decided to head for greener pastures and will be missed by those of us staying behind. We’ll be thinking good thoughts and look forward to stopping in for a howdy-&-shake when passing through their neck of the woods in the future.
It’s a hyper-competitive business environment for everyone today and we wish nothing but the very best to a couple of the nicest folks we’ve had the pleasure of associating with in the honky-tonk universe.
Meanwhile the miserably slow pace of recovery continues on the personal health front as I work my way through a fifth week of physio therapy in search of relief and a return to normalcy. Progress creaks forward steadily although summer will certainly be a memory before anything close to normal capability is restored to my injured wheels and so I continue to exercise patience and commitment in support of the therapy.
Thanks for being here and see you at the show.
– TH, 08/28/2013